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Forums - Politics Discussion - Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

Democrat seeking clarity on Harris’s Gaza policy told to ‘shut up’

The Michigan Democratic Party has held an online call to ask delegates to support Kamala Harris for president, and an uncommitted delegate says some seeking clarity on Harris’s Gaza policy were told to fall in line.

Delegate Abbas Alawieh, an organiser with the Uncommitted Movement, told Mother Jones magazine he was told to “shut up” by another delegate after he tried to explain why some within the Democratic Party want explanations on Gaza policy before committing to Harris.

“That felt like a slap in the face to me – to be on the receiving end of explicitly anti-Palestinian vitriol and to have the leaders of our party be silent about it. I guess it’s symptomatic of the larger problem of devaluing Palestinians and Palestinian life,” Alawieh said.




CNN wrote a big piece about Harris' stance on Gaza

Harris navigates Biden and Netanyahu as she considers her stance on Israel

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/politics/kamala-harris-israel-policy/index.html

Not much conclusive in there, a lot of speculation. But there are signs change is coming.

The uncertainty about where she stands is high enough that second gentleman Doug Emhoff made a surprise appearance on a quickly organized Zoom call Wednesday afternoon hosted by the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Jewish Women for Kamala.

“Let me just make this clear: The vice president has been and will be a strong supporter of Israel as a secure democratic and Jewish state, and she will always ensure that Israel can defend itself, period. Because that’s who Kamala Harris is,” Emhoff said.

But change is coming, predicted Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee who has been critical of Israel in this period and observed Harris’ foreign policy thinking when they served on the Senate Intelligence Committee together.

Emhoff is key

Harris’ connection to these issues is more than policy. It touches Emhoff’s daughter, who has been noticeably active on pro-Palestinian causes since October 7. It has come up at Seder dinners at the Naval Observatory. And more than anything, it is rooted in the second gentleman.

Emhoff has talked at length about feeling a sense of duty, not just when he became the first Jewish spouse of a vice president or president, and channeling that into helping develop the administration’s strategy to combat antisemitism. He’s also talked about how much pain he felt personally after October 7.

 

Ted Cruz slams Harris for not attending Netanyahu’s speech to US Congress

The US senator from Texas calls Kamala Harris, who is likely to be the Democratic candidate in November’s presidential election, “an extreme leftist”.

“She boycotted Prime Minister Netanyahu’s message to Congress because she represents the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas extremists who hate what our country stands for,” Cruz wrote on X after the vice president did not show up to watch Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday because she was campaigning.

“It is a disgrace that she abdicated her duty and refused to attend,” he added.

Trump: Israel needs to end Gaza war ‘fast’ as bad ‘publicity’ mounts

Ex-President Donald Trump – one day before meeting Benjamin Netanyahu – called for a quick end to Israel’s war on Gaza and a return of its captives saying the US ally is “getting decimated” by bad publicity.

“I want him to finish up and get it done quickly, he’s got to get it done quickly,” Trump told Fox News.

“For whatever reason you have Jewish people out there wearing Yarmulkes and they’re, you know, pro-Palestine. You’ve never seen anything like this… They got to get this done fast because the world is not taking lightly to it, it’s really incredible.”



Around the Network

21 EU lawmakers call for trade ban with illegal Israeli settlements after ICJ ruling

The landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that termed Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory as unlawful must lead to a “drastic change” in European Union policy, according to 21 members of the European Parliament.

They write to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a letter that the 27-member bloc must align itself with the findings of the UN’s highest court.

They also demand “an EU ban on trade with settlements” based on the ICJ opinion that states must “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories”.

“The ICJ’s historic opinion must be regarded as a pivotal moment for the EU to recalibrate its policy towards Israel set as to bring about the end of its unlawful occupation, enable the two-state solution to the conflict, ensuring freedom and safety for both peoples, and resolutely defend the international legal order,” the letter reads.

UK to withdraw objection to ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu: Report

New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reportedly expected to drop previous British government objections to the International Criminal Court (ICC) top prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant of Benjamin Netanyahu.

The move, which would mark a significant departure between UK and US policy on Gaza that had been almost fully aligned since the start of the war on Gaza, is reported by The New York Times citing two unnamed sourced briefed on the government’s deliberations.

This comes days after the new Labour government announced it is resuming critical funding to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, which stopped in January after unproven allegations of “terrorism” were brought against its staff by Israel.

The US is now the only country maintaining its block on funding to the main agency delivering aid to desperate Palestinians in Gaza as Washington continues to oppose the ICC arrest warrant requests as well.



Labour responding to the pressure, even if it's symbolic. Glad to see.



Ah just like after the debate, CNN dragging their feet with fact checking. Now they have a bigger list.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/24/politics/fact-check-netanyahu-congress-address/index.html

Aid entering Gaza

Claim: Netanyahu said Israel has “enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza” adding that it amounts to “more than 3,000 calories for every man, women, and child in Gaza.”

Fact: More than a dozen aid agencies working in the territory have said that Israel’s statistics on truck entries “fail to address several vital components necessary for an effective operational response”.

“The mere entry of trucks into Gaza does not guarantee that the supplies reach the intended recipients due to safety and security reasons,” they said, adding that “reported numbers do not differentiate between types of cargo, often mixing commercial goods with critical humanitarian aid, which obscures the real picture of assistance reaching those in crisis.”

CNN has reported on Israel’s arbitrary and contradictory criteria for the entry of aid and the strict rules it enforces at checkpoints.


Mehdi from Zeteo:

What he said:

“The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza. This is utter, complete nonsense. It’s a complete fabrication. Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That's half a million tons of food, and that's more than 3,000 calories for every man, woman, and child in Gaza.”

What he didn’t say: 

Netanyahu didn’t mention how the world’s leading aid agencies – Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, UNICEF – all reject his rosy image of the aid situation in Gaza and all accuse Israel of blocking aid into Gaza. He didn’t mention that, in April, Oxfam reported that “people in northern Gaza have been forced to survive on an average of 245 calories a day – less than a can of fava beans – since January,” or that the organization also found that “the total food deliveries allowed into Gaza for the entire 2.2 million population – since last October – amounted to an average of just 41 per cent of the daily calories needed per person.” 

He didn’t mention how some aid trucks that were destined for Gaza have been blocked by right-wing Israeli protesters; those protesters are on tape “throwing food packages onto the road and ripping bags of grain open.” He didn’t mention how many aid trucks do pass into Gaza, yes, but then get fired upon by Israeli forces. He didn’t mention the Israeli air strikes on a convoy of World Central Kitchen (WCK) trucks, in which seven food aid workers were targeted "systematically, car by car,” according to celebrity chef and WCK founder José Andrés. He didn’t mention the “Flour Massacre,” in which more than 100 Palestinians were killed after “shots were fired within close range of crowds that had gathered for food,” according to a CNN investigation.

Rafah death toll

Claim: Netanyahu said a commander in Rafah told him that there practically no civilian deaths in the city with the exception of “a single incident where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people.”

Fact: There have been multiple reports of several strikes in Rafah that have resulted in civilian casualties.

The incident Netanyahu appeared to refer to occurred in May and killed at least 45 people at a camp for displaced Palestinians. The airstrike injured more than 200 after a fire broke out at the camp following the strike, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian medics.

In the same week, at least 29 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli attacks on displacement camps in Rafah, according to Palestinian and UN officials.

CNN has verified videos from Rafah and spoken to several health officials, humanitarian workers and eyewitnesses who have reported civilian fatalities as a result of Israel’s military assault on the city.


Mehdi from Zeteo:

What he said:

“Remember what so many people said? If Israel goes into Rafah, there'll be thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of civilians killed. Well, last week, I went into Rafah. I visited our troops as they finished fighting Hamas’ remaining terrorist battalions. I asked the commander there, ‘How many terrorists did you take out in Rafah?’ He gave me an exact number: ‘1,203.’ I asked him how many civilians were killed. He said, ‘Prime Minister, practically, none – with the exception of a single incident, where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot, and unintentionally killed two dozen people, the answer is: practically none.’”

What he didn't say:

“Practically none”? Netanyahu didn’t mention the Israeli bomb that, per Amnesty International, “struck the four-storey home of the Abu Radwan family in the Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood in West Rafah, killing nine members of the family – six children, two women and one man” on April 19. He didn’t mention the Israeli strike that “destroyed the Abdelal family home in the al-Jneinah neighbourhood in eastern Rafah, killing 20 family members”. He didn’t mention the “at least 29 Palestinians… killed in two separate Israeli attacks on displacement camps in Rafah” in late May, as CNN reported at the time.

Then there is his suggestion that the dozens and dozens of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, who were killed in a horrific fire in the Tel al-Sultan refugee camp in Rafah on May 26, were killed not by the pair of 250-pound bombs dropped on them by the Israel air force but by “shrapnel from a bomb” that ignited a nearby “Hamas weapons depot.” The New York Times carried out an extensive investigation of this Israeli claim, saying it had “reviewed dozens of videos and has been unable to find any that suggest a significant secondary explosion.”

Ratio of combatant-civilian casualties

Claim: Netanyahu said the war in Gaza has “one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare.”

Fact: Israel has been saying since early on in the war that its ratio of civilian to terrorist fatalities is very low, but experts have cast doubt on the claim.

In November, then-Israeli military spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told CNN that Israel believes that it has killed two Palestinian civilians for every Hamas militant, saying the ratio is “tremendously positive.” Asked about the claims, Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who served in Iraq, told CNN the comments were “dead wrong,”

Conricus said that when the Israeli military reported how many fighters it had killed, it was referring to combatants, “people who are fighting.” In Gaza, thousands of residents are employed in Hamas-run administrative agencies but carry out civilian duties.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health doesn’t distinguish in its reporting between combatant and civilian deaths but has previously said that some 70% of casualties in all of Gaza have been women and children.

Open-source monitoring by watchdog group Airwars found a “high correlation” between the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s civilian casualty data and what Palestinian civilians “reported online,” according to a new  report.

More than 39,000 people have died in in Gaza since October, when Israel launched a war against Hamas after it attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.

Mehdi from Zeteo:

What he said:

“John Spencer is head of urban warfare studies at West Point. He studied every major urban conflict… Israel, he said, has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history – and beyond what international law requires. That’s why, despite all the lies you've heard, the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants-to-noncombatants casualties in the history of urban warfare.”

What he didn’t say:

What Netanyahu didn’t mention is that the Israeli military conveniently defines almost every adult male it kills in Gaza as a combatant – as one soldier told the Israeli publication +972: “Every man [in Gaza] between the ages of 16 and 50 is suspected of being a terrorist.” The soldier added: “It’s permissible to shoot everyone, a young girl, an old woman.”

What Netanyahu didn’t mention is what Israeli newspaper Haaretz has extensively reported on: that there are “kill zones” inside of Gaza where any Palestinian “who crosses into them is shot.” Per Haaretz: “The Israeli army says 9,000 terrorists have been killed since the Gaza war began. Defense officials and soldiers, however, tell Haaretz that these are often civilians whose only crime was to cross an invisible line drawn by the IDF.”

Netanyahu quoted John Spencer, a pro-Israeli U.S. academic, but he didn’t quote U.S. military historian Robert Pape, who has called Gaza “one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history.” He didn’t quote former UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour, who has said we are witnessing “probably the highest kill rate of any military killing anybody since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.” He didn’t quote U.S. Marine Corps veteran Phil Klay, who has argued that “even if we accept the IDF’s claim that 12,000 of the roughly 29,000 Gazans reported dead by February 20 were enemy fighters, that would still mean that for every 100 Israeli air strikes, the IDF killed an average of 54 civilians. In the U.S. campaign in Raqqa, the American military caused an estimated 1.7 civilian deaths per 100 strikes.”



Iran funding US protesters

Claim: Netanyahu said that the US director of national intelligence recently revealed “that Iran is funding and promoting anti-Israel protests in America.” He also said: “When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.

Fact: The suggestion that most or all anti-war protesters are pawns of Iran is not accurate, but US intelligence has indicated that Iranian government actors have tried to pay some protesters.

Last month, the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said that Iran is attempting to covertly stoke protests in the US related to the war in Gaza, posing as activists online and, in some cases, providing financial support to protesters. But Haines also said she wanted “to be clear that I know Americans who participate in protests are, in good faith, expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza,” adding that the intelligence “does not indicate otherwise.”

 

Mehdi from Zeteo:

What he said:

“For all we know, Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now, outside this building. Not that many, but they're there. And throughout this city. Well, I have a message for these protesters. When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting, and funding you, you have officially become Iran's useful idiots.”

What he didn’t say:

There is zero evidence, none, nada, for this nonsensical and offensive claim. Were the hundreds of Jewish antiwar protesters who were arrested at the Capitol the day before Netanyahu’s speech all paid by the Iranian government to be there? Are you kidding me? Are the majority of ordinary Americans who tell pollster after pollster that they favor a ceasefire in Gaza, and an end to the fighting, also “Iran’s useful idiots”? This was the dumbest, most dishonest, most desperate claim of Netanyahu’s entire speech to Congress. 

 

Starving Gazans

Claim: Netanyahu said the International Criminal Court’s allegation that Israel is starving people of Gaza is “utter, complete nonsense” and a “fabrication”.

Fact: On October 9, Israel declared a “complete siege” on Gaza, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying he would halt the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel to the enclave.

Israel has since eased some of those restrictions, but aid agencies say the food that is getting into the strip is only a fraction of what is needed, leading to widespread hunger. Israel’s military operations in Gaza, they say, also hinder the safe distribution of food. In April, USAID Administrator Samantha Power said it is “credible” to assess that famine is already occurring in parts of Gaza.

Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war, noting that high ranking Israeli officials “have made public statements expressing their aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of food, water and fuel” and that the “policy” is “being carried out by Israeli forces.”

Hamas stealing aid

Claim: Netanyahu said that if Palestinians in Gaza aren’t getting enough food, “it’s not because Israel is blocking it, it’s because Hamas is stealing it.”

Fact: There have been some anecdotal reports from Gazans of Hamas stealing aid, although it’s not clear how rampant it is.

Israeli officials have been making the claim that Hamas was stealing aid since October. UN Humanitarian Coordinator Lynn Hastings told CNN then that Hamas wasn’t stealing aid because aid wasn’t coming in.

US Special Envoy David Satterfield in February denied the allegations that Hamas has stolen aid, saying that no Israeli official had presented him or the Biden administration with “specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance.”

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller did however say in May that one shipment coming from Jordan was briefly diverted by the group before it was recovered by the UN. CNN cannot independently confirm the claim.

Aid agencies have said that there have been cases of looting by the public due to Israel’s military operation leading to a breakdown in public order and safety.

Nothing of that stopped congress giving Netanyahu standing ovations during his speech, except one Rashida Tlaib.



Fighting and strikes from Gaza’s top to bottom

Israeli forces have pushed deeper into eastern Khan Younis in southern Gaza and tanks have advanced in nearby Rafah city, with air strikes and artillery shelling hammering both areas.

Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli attacks in Khan Younis killed 14 people, taking the death toll across the coastal region over the past 24 hours to 30 people, with 146 wounded.

Fierce fighting in recent days has centred around the eastern Khan Younis towns of Bani Suaila, az-Zanna, and al-Karara. Israeli bombardment intensified in several areas in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, as tanks operated north, west and in the city centre, residents and medics said.

Central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, where tanks haven’t yet invaded, is currently overcrowded with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from other areas of the war-battered enclave.

In northern Gaza, an Israeli air strike on a house in the Sheikh Radwan suburb killed four people, medics said.


Palestinian medics targeted directly in Khan Younis

Israeli military forces fired live rounds at an ambulance that was evacuating an injured person in Khan Younis, where a new ground invasion is expanding, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

‘Snipers shooting anyone who moves’ in Khan Younis

In the past hour, we’ve heard a new wave of air strikes by Israeli fighter jets that targeted the central areas of Gaza. In Bureij, which is a very active warzone between Hamas fighters and Israeli forces, fighting continues to rage.

The main focus of the ongoing Israeli assault is the eastern part of Khan Younis city where at least 20 Palestinians have been killed since the early hours of today. The vast majority of dead and injured are women and children.

Witnesses say Israeli snipers have been deployed there and are shooting anyone who is moving. Casualties continue to arrive at Nasser Hospital, with many victims in critical condition, medical sources say.


A Palestinian boy is treated at Nasser Hospital after being wounded in Khan Younis


Displaced families in Khan Younis set up camp in cemetery

Video posted on X by a Palestinian journalist shows families establishing makeshift shelters in a cemetery in Khan Younis due to the influx of displaced people and overcrowding at shelters.

On Monday, the Israeli army ordered a fresh round of evacuations from areas of Khan Younis immediately following them with violent bombardment. The UN says that the evacuation orders affected around 150,000 people.

Displaced people live with the dead As a result of overcrowding and repeated displacement, dozens of Palestinian families were forced to live inside cemeteries for the dead in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. The voice of the displaced: We and the dead are the same inside the cemeteries.


PRCS says rescue efforts ongoing in Gaza City amid Israeli strikes

Israel’s strikes on Gaza City are ongoing, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said, as its teams attempt to evacuate the wounded and take them to hospital.

The organisation posted a video showing their efforts to rescue injured Palestinians, including women.



Around the Network

Qatar welcomes China-hosted reconciliation of Palestinian factions

Qatar welcomed the signing of the “Beijing Declaration” by Palestinian factions earlier this week to achieve reconciliation and strengthen unity against Israeli “violations” in all the occupied territory.

The foreign ministry said in a statement it considers the agreement “an important step towards national unity and the consolidation of the national project to establish an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.



Harris blasts ‘despicable’ US flag burning at anti-Netanyahu protest

US Vice President Kamala Harris denounced the “unpatriotic” burning of an American flag by protesters who rallied in Washington, DC, during Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress.

“I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way,” the likely Democratic presidential candidate said in an unusually strong statement.

She said Wednesday’s demonstration featured “despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric”.

That's what happens when your highest ideals are committing the world's most documented genocide. Patriotism is what fuels stupid wars. If you want to say something about dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric, see Netanyahu's speech.

What's the promise of America? Threaten and bomb everyone that doesn't look like 'us'? That's the image you're projecting to the world.

I guess Harris had to say something or risk getting called anti-semetic and unpatriotic by Republicans.


Members of Neturei Karta, an international anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jewish organisation, march by the US Capitol protesting against the July 24 visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu



Houthi leader pledges ‘inevitable’ retaliation against Israel

A Houthi response to deadly Israeli air raids near Yemen’s Hodeidah is coming, the militia’s leader warned in a televised speech.

“The response is inevitable,” Abdel-Malik al-Houthi said. “Everything that happens from the side of the Israeli enemy will be more incentive for revenge.”

Israeli fighter jets struck Houthi military targets near Yemen’s port of Hodeidah on Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding 87, a day after a Houthi drone hit Tel Aviv and killed one person.

The group’s attacks on Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza will continue and won’t be deterred by the Israeli attacks, al-Houthi added.

Yemen’s Houthis expanding footprint in Iraq: Monitors

US-based think tanks The Critical Project and the Institute for the Study of War have highlighted meetings among senior members of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance” in Iraq this week.

Houthi representative to Iraq Abu Idris al-Sharafi reportedly met with the leader of a group under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq along with a senior Hamas representative to Iraq in Baghdad.

“These meetings come amid uncorroborated reports claiming that hundreds of Houthi fighters have traveled to Iraq in recent weeks to receive training from Iranian officers and drone and missile experts,” the war monitors said.

The Houthis in Yemen, whose fight with Israel in support of Palestinians escalated after they successfully attacked Tel Aviv for the first time, have been increasingly cooperating with the Iran-backed factions in Iraq.



Sirens sound in northern Israel as Hezbollah claims attacks

Hezbollah has claimed two attacks using rockets and missiles on northern Israel, with air raid sirens also indicating a possible drone assault.

The armed Lebanese group said it targeted a deployment of Israeli soldiers “in the forest” in one attack, with another hitting a military site in the occupied Kfarchouba hills, both achieving direct hits.


Fires break out in Israel after drones cross from Lebanon

The Israeli military says it fired interceptor missiles at several drones that crossed from Lebanon but failed to down them.

Several fires were sparked as a result of shrapnel from the interceptor missiles, the army said on X.

It added that missile and rocket fire alerts were activated as a precautionary measure.

Wildfires on both sides of the Lebanon-Israel border have raged throughout this summer’s dry season, a result of the exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.


Several attacks reported in southern Lebanon

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) has reported several Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.

Air raids targeted the towns of Aitaroun and Aita al-Shaab. One bomb that fell in Aitaroun did not explode, the NNA reported.

Artillery shelling hit Bint Jbeil, Aita al-Shaab as well as the outskirts of Kfarchouba and Kafr Hamam.



Pro-Palestinian demonstration as Israel participates at Paris Olympics

Protesters – some wearing masks and sunglasses to protect their identity – sent a message of solidarity by raising a Palestinian flag at the Paris Olympics as Israeli athletes began their controversial participation in the Games.

Translation: In solidarity with Gaza, the Palestinian flag was raised during the Israeli team’s first match at the Paris Olympics.


Some more fear mongering

Israel warns of threats to Israeli tourists at Olympics

The Israeli government has warned France that Israeli tourists attending the Olympic Games in Paris could be threatened by Iran-backed groups.

“We currently have assessments of potential threats from Iranian terror affiliates and other terrorist organisations aiming to carry out terror attacks against members of the Israeli delegation and Israeli tourists during the Olympics,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a letter released to the media.

France has deployed about 18,000 French troops to bolster security at the Summer Games, in addition to regular police.


Israel says Iran cyberattacks athletes at Paris Olympics

Israel is claiming that Iran is behind a cyber campaign aimed at intimidating members of the Israeli delegation at the Paris Olympics.

The National Cyber Directorate said that a thorough investigation found that the alleged cyberattackers used social media to publish personal information about the delegation members and send them threatening messages.

The office said that it was coordinating with the Israeli Olympic Committee to ensure the athletes’ safety.

Always playing the victim.



Israel accuses UN expert of spreading anti-Semitism

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese of using the UN “as a shield to spread antisemitism,” after she commented on a picture drawing a parallel between Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A post circulating on social media juxtaposed a 1933 picture of Hitler being cheered by supporters of his Nazi Party in the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin with that of Netanyahu being greeted by members of the US Congress after his address on Wednesday.

Albanese responded to the post on X saying: “This is precisely what I was thinking today.”

Israeli Ambassador Amir Weissbrod called on the UN to fire Albanese. “Keeping her in her job will show that the UN encourages antisemitism and doesn’t stand with the basic principles it pretends to represent: impartiality and neutrality,” he said on X.

It's what I was thinking as well.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan


An enormous portrait of George Washington hangs alongside swastika banners and American flags at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1939 during the German American Bund's Pro American Rally.

That was a lot bigger than a speech before congress, yet the parallels are there. Except now it's against Muslims, Palestinians in particular.


EU’s Borrell says labelling UNRWA as ‘terrorist’ is ‘nonsense’

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has slammed Israel’s advance of laws labelling UNRWA as a ‘terrorist’ organisation, amid a push to discredit the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

“Outlawing UNRWA – and labelling it as terrorist, which it is not – amounts to targeting regional stability and human dignity of all those benefiting from the UN agency work,” Borrell said on X.

“We join many partners in urging the Israeli Government to halt this nonsense.”